Brad Pitt Takes the Wheel in High-Octane Film ‘F1’

Nov 12, 2024

Hollywood sensation Brad Pitt is set to star in a high-octane Formula One-inspired picture titled F1 alongside British actor Damson Idris.

The movie also stars Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and F1 Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who co-produced the film.

Apple Original Films, in conjunction with Warner Bros and F1, announced that the film will open in cinemas in North America on June 27, 2025.

F1 follows Sonny Hayes (Pitt), a washed-up Formula One driver from the 1990s, who suffered a horrendous crash that forced him to start racing in other disciplines.

An F1 team owner and friend (Bardem) contacts Hayes, asking him to mentor young star Joshua Pearce (Idris) for the Expensify Apex Grand Prix team (APXGP).

The American sports action drama is directed by Joseph Kosinski, written by Ehren Kruger and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Pitt, Chad Oman, Hamilton and more.

Intriguingly, Kosinski, Kruger and Bruckheimer worked together on Top Gun: Maverick, which earned six nominations at the 95th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Hamilton’s company, Dawn Apollo Films, is involved in the production, and the British F1 legend has been charged with making the picture as realistic as possible. 

Pitt’s fictional 11th team, Apex GP, have been sited at the races in the pits and paddock between Ferrari and Mercedes with garage equipment including stop rigs, spare tyres, wheels and more.

Director Kosinski believes that embedding the movie into the racetracks to capture specific scenes while the races are happening adds intensity and more than a touch of reality.

F1 is being filmed in collaboration with all ten teams on racing weekends, and the film crew has been spotted regularly by fans hyped for the picture.

Production is ongoing and will likely continue until December when the Qatar Grand Prix and Abu Dhabi GP are staged in the Middle East.

Arab F1 fans will be looking forward to the races and possibly getting to see some of their favourite movie stars strutting their stuff.

The Middle East races are always a spectacle that brings F1 fans to the Gulf region. Besides the exhilarating races, the series generates massive interest from the Arab betting community.

Punters wager on their favourite teams and drivers to clinch podium spots, amongst other options available on the sportsbooks listed on comparison website https://www.arabswin.com/.

The ability to show off their F1 knowledge and potentially profit from their predictions adds an extra layer of excitement and engagement to the races.

Hamilton will be at the Middle Eastern races looking to close in on a top three finish after a shoddy year that has seen him finish on the podium only four times. 

While he battles for supremacy, Pitt and Idris will be enacting their own story, and they will be driving F1 cars, according to director Kosinski.

Shooting is intense, as expected in a movie about F1. The filming crew had to nail one scene at Silverstone in nine minutes, adding to the existing pressure of a complex set.

The two main stars had to undergo training for almost three months before they were ready to drive the vehicles being used for the movies. 

Pitt and Idris reportedly started with Formula 3 cars before graduating to Formula 2. There are around 15 cameras planted in the vehicles to shoot while they drive.

Several racing movies have been criticised for failing to depict the speed involved in F1. Most of them are filmed with a large truck in front, trying to capture how fast the car is driving behind. However, Kosinski and his team want to give the audience something different.

Fans will be desperate to see F1 deliver a racing classic such as Le Mans (1971), Rush (2013), Senna (2013) and Ford v Ferrari (2019) rather than a bust like Driven (2001) or At Any Price (2012).

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